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Snowden's alleged leaks are said to rank among the most
significant breaches in the history of the NSA. In May
2013, Snowden requested a medical leave from work at the
NSA in Hawaii to seek treatment for epilepsy, shortly
there after Snowden and his girlfriend boarded a flight
for Hong Kong. In June, news reports began to surface on
the NSA. These leaks would later be confirmed by Snowden
as leaks reported by him to the press.
On
June 5, it was reported that the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Court (FISC) ordered Verizon to provide "on
an ongoing daily basis" metadata for all telephone calls
“ within the United States, including local telephone
calls” and all calls made “between the United States and
abroad” (reported by The Guardian a British national
daily newspaper).
On
June 6, it was reported that the NSA has a electronic
surveillance program that allows the NSA to access
e-mail, web searches, and other Internet traffic in
real-time (reported by The Guardian and the Washington
Post).
On
June 9, it was reported that the NSA was collecting
information that "details and even maps by country the
voluminous amount of information it collects from
computer and telephone networks (reported by The
Guardian).
On
June 12, it was reported that the NSA was hacking into
computers in China and Hong Kong since 2009 (reported by
the South China Morning Post).
On
June 17, it was reported that the Government
Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), a British
intelligence agency, had intercepted foreign
politicians' communications at the 2009 G-20 London
Summit (reported by The Guardian).
On
June 20, it was reported that two secret documents,
signed by Attorney General Eric Holder described the
rules in which the NSA determines whether targets of
investigations are foreign or domestic (reported by The
Guardian).
On
June 22, it was reported British Government
Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) operated a program
called operation 'Tempora' in which the UK government
would massive interception of fiber-optic traffic and
share with the NSA (reported by The Guardian).
On June 23, it was reported that the NSA had hacked
Chinese mobile phone companies in order to collect
millions of text messages and has also hacked
Tsinghua University in Beijing and the Asian fiber
optic network operator Pacnet (reported by The
Guardian).
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